Westchester County Championship Preview

Posted Monday, October 23, 2006 by Perry King

In 2005 the Westchester County Championship was held like this year at Van Cortlandt Park's 2.5 mile course. All of the county teams ran in one race each for the boys and girls. Dobbs did not compete in the JV races. Last year 23 qualifying and 29 total teams competed in the girls race, and 170 runners finished. On the boys side, 30 qualifying and 33 total teams competed, featuring 206 runners.

Reilly Kiernan was the top finisher at 14:56:65 for the girls running for the nonqualifying Pelham team, and Bronxville outscored runnerup Horace Greeley for the team title by 23-103. The top finisher for the boys was Alex Bean of Somers in 12:46:39, but his team was edged out by Byram Hills 67-69 for the team title.

The girls placed their standard three runners at: Paulina Nunez (45) 17:10:26, Lauren Hanley (54) in a great 17:17:50, and Anna Preddy (33) 18:13:70. Their average time was 17:33:98, an average of 7:01 per mile.

The Dobbs boys were 21st out of 30 teams. Their average time was 15:46:28, an average of 6:18 per mile. The order of finish was: Scott Sitman (69) 14:47:15, Kevin Byrne (115) 15:53:26, Yoshi Miura (119) 15:55:56, Pat Luckett (120) 16:05:77, David King (122) 16:09:69, and Pat Newman (133, 258) 16:23:76.

This race is similar to the Manhattan Invitational race in that Dobbs will be competing against schools from the larger classes and more than 200 boys will be running in a single race. Many of the large schools like Arlington, Carmel, and Suffern that competed in the Section 1 Coaches race on Saturday will not be at the race on Thursday since they are from other counties.

Judging from the Coaches race, on the girls side the top runners should be senior Meghan Houser of Horace Greeley, Bronxville's Emma Clarke and Tori Flannery, Kaylin Gilmartin Donohue from White Plains, and Sofia Spring from Croton-Harmon, three of whom run for class C schools. Three of the top 5 runners from last year either graduated or are injured. Bronxville will be favored to beat out Horace Greeley and New Rochelle for the team title.

On the boys side, senior Max Kasak of Byram Hills should win, followed by a pack that includes Kasak's teammates Gerald McDonald and Phillip Cawkwell, Ossining's Mike Poleski, Scarsdale's Julian Sheinbaum, and Edgemont's Zach Borenstein. Byram Hills should win race, with Horace Greeley and Somers battling for second.

The girls will be battling larger teams, 16 of whom ran at the Coaches Invite. There will probably be 24 teams competing, and the Eagles should finish pretty much squarely in the middle of the scores. Paulina's 16:32 Manhattan Invite time would have earned her a 30th place finish in last year's County meet, and the girls average time of 18:04 at this year's League meet would have earned them a 12th place finish at last year's County meet.

The boys should again be competing against about 30 teams, and judging by the Coaches Invite scores, the team should finish like the girls squarely in the middle of the pack. Dave's 14:56 time at the League Championship race would have earned him a 73rd place finish in last year's County race, a few seconds behind Scott Sitman. The boys average time in the League meet in 2006 was 20 seconds faster than last year's County time, and they should be able to lower that time even more on Thursday.